Teen Who Disappeared During Spring Break Found Dead After 13 Years; Sex Offender Arrested

The body of a 17-year-old girl from New York City who disappeared during a spring break while visiting South Carolina's Myrtle Beach was found 13 years after she went missing. A sex offender was arrested in connection with the girl's murder, police said Monday.

Cops arrested a 62-year-old suspect, identified as Raymond Douglas Moody of Georgetown, South Carolina, for kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and murdering the missing Rochester teen identified as Brittanee Drexel while she was on vacation in Myrtle Beach, NBC New York reported.

Drexel was last seen alive while she was walking between hotels in Myrtle Beach in April 2009. Drexel's boyfriend, who stayed back home during the spring break, raised concerns when she failed to return his text messages.

The teen's body was found on May 7, 2022, in Georgetown County, about 35 miles down the coast from where she disappeared.

The investigators determined that Moody kidnapped the victim the same night she went missing. He then raped and killed her before burying her body the next day in the woods, Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver said in a press conference Monday.

The FBI's Evidence Response Team identified Drexel's body using dental records. Although the police made the breakthrough in the case last week, they did not disclose the arrest until Monday.

Moody, who has an "extensive sex offender history" was convicted for multiple sexual offenses in 1983, and was identified as a possible suspect in the missing girl's case in 2012.

Officials indicated that Drexel's remains were discovered based on some undisclosed evidence but have not released further details of the murder. "Charges against Raymond Moody were made possible through investigating findings and evidence that led us to a possible site where Raymond Moody buried a deceased Brittanee Drexel on or about April the 26th of 2009," Weaver said.

Meanwhile, Drexel's mother thanked the officials who worked hard in the past 13 years to look for her missing daughter.

"This is truly a mother's worst nightmare. I am mourning my beautiful daughter Brittanee as I have for the past 13 years," Drexel's mother Dawn said. "Today marks the beginning of a new chapter. The search for Brittanee is now a pursuit of Brittanee's justice," she added, as reported by CBS News.